April 2012 Pacific-12 Conference Wiretap

Kyle Anderson underwent an MRI on his injured thumb Wednesday and was told that surgery is necessary.

“Dr. Urquhart says he has torn ligaments in his thumb and after reading the MRI and seeing the MRI he believes he needs surgery,” Kyle Anderson Sr. said. “We respect his opinion and judgment but are still going to have a second opinion.”

Anderson initially injured the thumb during a late-season practice and tweaked it again during a recent scrimmage for the McDonald’s All-American Game.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar spent four seasons at UCLA, winning three NCAA championships, before being selected with the first overall pick in the 1969 NBA draft.

Jabbar recounted his collegiate experience in a self-written column Thursday.

“When I left high school, I could not play professionally in the NBA,” Jabbar wrote. “It had a rule that prohibited me from playing until after the year that I would have graduated from college. For me to have played pro ball I would have had to play overseas or for the Harlem Globetrotters (which I never seriously considered, because college was my goal).

“I chose to go to UCLA, which had just won back-to-back NCAA championships. The rules of the NCAA stated that freshmen were ineligible to play varsity. My freshman team was very good, so good that we beat the varsity team in the season-opening freshman-varsity game. So to begin the 1965-66 season, the Bruins varsity was No. 1 in the country but No. 2 on campus. Coach John Wooden had an embarrassment of riches.

“When I finally got to play varsity, the Bruins went on to one of the greatest demonstrations of dominance college sports has ever seen. My team won the NCAA tourney for three consecutive years, and after I left they continued to dominate the game, winning four more consecutive titles and finally totaling 10 championships in 12 years. It's impossible to imagine this ever happening again.”

If the rules had allowed it, Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor) probably would have declared early for the NBA draft.

“The starting five (three freshmen and two sophomores) from this year's NCAA champion, the University of Kentucky, declared for the NBA draft this week,” Jabbar wrote. “I can't say that I would chose differently today. In that hypothetical vein, if I and my teammates from 1965 had been freshmen this year, the 2012 trophy would be headed home to Westwood. It's also likely, in that dream scenario, that Anthony Davis would not be the presumptive No. 1 pick in the upcoming draft.”

Tony Parker has narrowed his focus down to Ohio State, Kansas, Duke, UCLA and Georgia.

Parker eliminated Memphis and Georgetown from consideration and plans to make his decision late next week.

“I haven’t worked out all of the details yet, but next week is the week,” said Parker. “I’m just ready to get it over with. It’s been a long process, and I’m ready for it to be over. I’m still weighing things out, but I gave myself 'til next week. That’s when it’s happening.”

Ben Howland is excited to have one of the top incoming classes in the country.

Shabazz Muhammad, one of the country's top two high school basketball prospects, committed to UCLA on Wednesday night.

“He has a lot of special qualities,” Howland said of Muhammad. “He’s a great scorer, can really shoot the ball, gets to the line a lot because he’s so aggressive attacking the rim. He’s explosive. He’s 222-pound, 6-6, long, athletic, bouncy, just a really, really good player.”

Howland said the Bruins will look to capitalize on the skills of Muhammad and Kyle Anderson, another top-five recruit.

“We’ve got to be more aggressive offensively, attacking and really trying to get him out to where he can attack in the open court,” Howland said. “It’s not just Shabazz. One of the key factors is that we had already signed one of his close friends, Kyle Anderson, who is a great player, obviously, in his own right, a top-five player in the country. He has point guard skills, is a 6-8 point, really passes the ball. … You get a chance to see them playing together, it’s exciting.”